David Sassoon

The Keystone XL pipeline, currently awaiting a thumbs up or down on a presidential permit, has been the subject of ferocious debate. While proponents tout the pipeline project as a boon to national security, and a move that would reduce America’s dependence on “unethical oil”, Its opponents are fearful of the environmental nightmare it would create (to say nothing of the immnent threat of future devastating spills like last year’s Michigan Kalamazoo spill). The pipeline, if built, would increase siginificantly the import of dirty tar sands bitumen from Canada’s oil sands to the U.S. by as much as 510,000 barrels a day.

What’s been left out of the fierce debate over the pipeline, according to SolveClimate News, is the prospect that if president Obama okayed the Keystone XL pipeline, he would be handing a major victory and great financial opportunity to Charles and David Koch, his staunchest political enemies and the most powerful opponents of his clean economy agenda.

Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.

There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.